Articles

Oldest Gorilla Teeth

Oldest gorilla teeth found, according to articles in BBC News and Nature, vol. 418, p145, 22 August 2007 and New Scientist, 25 August, p12. Japanese and Ethiopian Palaeontologists have found nine fossil teeth in the Afar valley in Ethiopia that are "collectively indistinguishable from modern gorilla subspecies". The teeth have a distinctive structure that enables gorillas to feed on very fibrous plant material, such as stems and leaves. They are dated as 10 million years old, making them the oldest gorilla fossils so far found. This age challenges the theory that ancestors of gorillas separated from the ancestors of chimpanzees and humans eight million years ago. The fossils have been given the scientific name, Chororapithecus abyssinicus after the geological formation they were found in, the Miocene Chorora formation, and the old name for Ethiopia, which was Abyssinia.

Editorial Comment: Not the naming ploy - these fossils have been given a different genus and species name from present day gorillas despite the fact that they are "collectively indistinguishable from modern gorilla subspecies". Giving them a different name simply because they are dated as being older than evolutionary belief about when gorillas evolved, is not evidence for evolution; it is applying already held evolutionary prejudice to the facts which actually are undeniable evidence that gorillas have reproduced after their kind, just as Genesis says they were made to do. (Ref. apes, primates, Africa)